Trick or Treat means UNICEF and Children

It is Halloween -- a holiday which is truly meant to be fun for children, primarily associated with costumes, candy and UNICEF, the United Nation's Children's Fund.  Here are several relatively new books which also talk about helping children.

THE FUTURE OF US by Irwin Redlener is published by Columbia University Press. It movingly tells
the story of Redlener's decades long efforts to treat poor children, whether in the South during the Civil Rights Movement or in New York City where he co-founded Children's Health Fund and Children's Hospital. This is truly an impressive and inspirational work. Also a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Redlener effectively uses the stories -- and dreams -- of those he helped to support his plea that unequal educational opportunities, poor healthcare and startling poverty levels must be addressed so that children's needs can be met. 

BEFORE YOU WAKE by Erick Erickson is a series of letters to his children, prompted in large part by the health scares faced by himself and his wife in 2016. Also a Fox News contributor, Erickson expanded his original blog post to a book long format of 10 letters with subtitles such as "God Has a Plan and It May Not be Yours" and "Seeing the World Changes You" -- much to ponder here.  

I also want to read TELL ME HOW IT ENDS by Valeria Luiselli.  It is a short (~120 pages) book which describes Luiselli's experiences as an interpreter for children fighting deportation or requesting asylum who must answer 40 questions in order to be allowed to stay in the United States. These undocumented young people, most alone and some only 6 or 7 years of age, must face a bureaucratic maze and hopefully Luselli's works will educate Americans about this process. There is an NPR interview here which notes that the author was "aghast at the gap between American ideals and the way we actually treat undocumented children." In its starred review, Kirkus called TELL ME HOW IT ENDS "a powerful call to action and to empathy." Possible Junior Theme pairing with Lucky Boy.

Do you have a non-fiction work related to children that you would like to share? Please let me know.

Forged in Crisis by Nancy Koehn

FORGED IN CRISIS by Nancy Koehn is subtitled "The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times" and profiles polar explorer Ernest Shackleton; President Abraham Lincoln; legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and environmental crusader Rachel Carson. 

Koehn, an historian and executive consultant at Harvard Business Schoo,l explains in her book and in the Big Think video below how each of these leaders found that sometimes “doing nothing is the most powerful, the most significant, the most influential thing a leader can do.”

I am excited to recommend this book to readers interested in history, in leadership, and in the events and movements associated with the individuals profiled. I remember studying Rachel Carson and the impact she had – today many students do not even know her name. I also liked Koehn’s emphasis on being mission-driven, focusing on the big picture, and resiliency in overcoming personal crises.
 
FORGED IN CRISIS received starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus.  NOTE: Nancy Koehn will be speaking at New Trier High School on Friday, Nov. 3rd at 7:00pm.  

Tell Tale by Jeffrey Archer and more mysteries

Jeffrey Archer has been a favorite author of mine since reading his books like Kane and Abel, but I also very much enjoy his short story collections like A Quiver Full of Arrows or Twelve Red Herrings. His newest set of short stories - the first in nearly a decade - is titled TELL TALE and it doesn't disappoint. Just like previous works, there are plenty of trademark Archer twists and surprise endings. So far, I have especially enjoyed "Who Killed the Mayor?"

I also wanted to take this opportunity to mention a couple of new mystery "cozy" series I thought I would try.  I am very happily immersed in THE SECRET BOOK AND SCONE SOCIETY by Ellery Adams. The first in a new series for prolific writer Adams, this is a delicious mix of  baking and bibliotherapy with tons of references to book titles and authors - plus a mysterious death to solve. Doesn't that sound perfect? Four strong women, Nora (a former librarian), Hester (the baker), Estrella (runs a beauty salon) and June (works at he local spa) learn to trust each other as they combine to solve the death of Neil Parrish, an investor in a housing development in Miracle Springs, North Carolina. Library Journal called THE SECRET BOOK AND SCONE SOCIETY a "tasty treat" and gave it a starred review. BEST-LAID PLANTS by Marty Wingate is "on deck" in my to-be-read mystery pile. Available via Kindle or as an audio book, this title is number 6 in the potting shed mystery series, though the first for me. Pru Parke and her husband, former Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse, take a trip to the beautiful Cotswolds intending to help rejuvinate a garden, but instead find a body and a mystery. Charming atmosphere, complete with a local village fete and plenty of suspects.

An American Family by Khizr Khan

This aptly subtitled memoir of hope and sacrifice, AN AMERICAN FAMILY by Khizr Khan, certainly fits with the news headlines of the last week or so regarding respect for American service men and women.

Khizr Khan and his wife, Ghazal, are Gold Star parents, having lost their son, Humayun Khan, in 2004 during the Iraq War. This memoir tells the story of their early days as students in Pakistan, life in Dubai, and eventual move to America – first Houston, then Boston where Khan earned a law degree from Harvard, and then to Virginia where their son had attended college and joined ROTC.  

For me, this elegantly written book should be savored – it is very moving and relates an important immigrant story as well as one of painful sacrifice. The New York Times Book Review said AN AMERICAN FAMILY "can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like."

You can see and hear Khizr Khan speak about why public service is the root of patriotism at this PBS NewsHour link. 

Building a StoryBrand and other new business books

Below are comments about several new business books:
BUILDING A STORYBRAND by Donald Miller is the number one selling hardcover business book according to the charts in today's Wall Street Journal. Its subtitle is "Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen"and it begins with tons of testimonials from practitioners and small business owners who are amazed at its effectiveness. I am curious to see if these principles can translate to other entities like our school library or our school district when voters are deciding on funding levels. Miller advocates using the StoryBrand7 Framework, refining your website to be clear and compelling and executing the StoryBrand Marketing Blueprint's five tasks (create a one-liner for your company; create email addresses using a lead generator; create an automated email drip campaign; collect and tell stories of transformation; create a referral generating campaign).  I wondered about the emphasis on emails, but Miller says a 20% open rate is industry standard. It's an interesting take on a marketing plan and should pair nicely with Simon Sinek's START WITH WHY.

My favorite of the titles listed here, REAL IMPACT is written by Morgan Simon who has an impressive background in finance and social justice. She serves on several advisory boards and is an adjunct professor at Middlebury.  Here, she extols the possibilities for impact investing -- that is, the trillion dollar trend of investing both for profit and for social benefit. As an activist, she writes not only about good intentions involved, but also about the flaws in the current system (e.g., free market plus charity, microfinance, fair trade efforts). Then, Simon proposes a new, transformative model (based on principles like "engage communities in design, governance, and ownership," "add more value than you extract," and "fairly balance risk and return between investors, entrepreneurs, and communities") and provides stories of specific impact investment projects. She addresses her comments to portfolio managers and to the general public interested in using their money to do good, inviting readers to use REAL IMPACT as "an opportunity to reflect deeply on what having real impact can mean to your work." Including her own experiences and emphasizing the importance of community level research makes this an engaging, appealing read, especially to young people interested in the field.

INVESTING WITH IMPACT is by Jeremy Balkin, another expert in this field - see his TedTalk here.

Finally, THE STARTUP WAY is by Eric Ries, an entrepreneur, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, and consultant to a range of businesses, including GE. This longer, 400 page text emphasizes the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset and ways that the modern company can transform itself to embrace entrepreneurial thought and actions. After providing some historical perspective, Ries outlines "a management system for innovations at scale." More information and excerpts are available at his website.

We are in the process of identifying some possible titles for our business students to read as part of an independent assignment.  If you have some to recommend, please let us know.

Artistic Talent .... in Photography and Writing

These two new books each showcase an artistic project.

THE ATLAS OF BEAUTY: WOMEN OF THE WORLD IN 500 PORTRAITS by Mihaela Noroc is an amazing book which was several years in development. Noroc is a photographer whose work has become known through social media and her blog. She has traveled with a backpack and camera to over 50 countries to capture moving moments. After travelling to Ethiopia in 2013 and re-kindling her own interest in photographing women when she saw the variety (rural life in tribes, in conservative communities or in modern, urban settings) and beauty in that one country, Noroc expanded this project to cover more geographical distance as well as different ages and physical characteristics. She includes a brief story about many of the women who appear in her book and those are equally fascinating, particularly in light of the discrimination, social pressures and opportunities which Noroc encountered. She writes, “We shouldn’t build walls between us, based on gender, ethnicity, color, sexual orientation, or religion, but find paths that connect us … I hope this book will be one of those paths.”

THE ATLAS OF BEAUTY made me think of Robin Bowman’s It’s Complicated or Portrait Revolution by Julia L. Kay, two other works which celebrate diversity and to which our students are often directed. 

LIGHT THE DARK is edited by Joe Fassler, available in paperback, and contains essays by roughly 50 authors.  And quite a list it is: William Gibson, Khaled Hosseini, Mary Gaitskill, Billy Collins, Marilynne Robinson, etc.  It is an illuminating and eclectic look at whose work inspired each of them, for example: Michael Chabon (Jorge Luis Borges), Junot Díaz (Toni Morrison), Neil Gaiman (R.A. Lafferty), Walter Mosley (Raymond Chandler), and Jane Smiley (Charles Dickens).  I was previously unaware of the “By Heart” online series which Fassler had created for The Atlantic in 2013 and a source for many of the submissions.

I have already been talking about this brand new book with English teachers and they are eagerly waiting to begin reading the insights regarding “creativity, inspiration and the artistic process.” Fassler notes that "at the core of each of these pieces is a moment of transformative reading .... each contributor tells some version of the same story: I read something, and I wasn't the same afterward." LIGHT THE DARK seems like a perfect work for summer reading for our Senior Writers Seminar students, but I think it is one to keep referring to all year long. Library Journal gave it a starred review. 

For even more books on writing, see “The 28 Best Books on Writing,” recently posted on Penguin Random House’s Signature.